Poetry

Links I Love

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Snow on Cayuga Lake, April 1st. I zoomed in with my phone, so the quality is horrible, but at least you get an idea of what it’s like in the Finger Lakes this time of year.

Here is where you will find my sources of inspiration this week. It could be in the form of podcasts, books, blogs, and/or films/shows.

I found three different episodes on Jenna Kutcher’s Goal Digger podcast that contained helpful advice on business and marketing for email and Instagram. I started implementing her tips for Instagram right away. Now I need a day to revamp my website and plan out an email marketing campaign.

Julie Solomon’s Influencer Podcast gave me some helpful tips about blogging and social media.

The John Maxwell Leadership Podcast had a two part series called A Winner’s Daily Mindset that encouraged and motivated me. Here’s Part One. (One thing I dislike about this podcast is the commentary from the two show hosts after John speaks. They just drag the show out for another fifteen to twenty minutes rehashing his content like a couple of Southern-accented sports commentators with bad grammar. Leave the talking to John, boys!)

Krista Tippett interviewed Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach for On Being Podcast, discussing the work Glennon is doing with Love Flash Mobs and Abby’s new book Wolfpack,which will be released Tuesday April 9th (can’t wait!).

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Oh, and it’s National Poetry Month! I will be releasing a post each day at 5pm ET called “Evening Poetry” in which I share one of Mary Oliver’s poems. Mary Oliver is a good place to start for people who think they don’t like poetry. I say “think they don’t like” because there is definitely poetry in the world for everyone. Give poetry a chance! Check out the Poetry Foundation’s website for poetry galore, head to your local library, and buy a book of poetry at your local bookstore. I received a new book of poetry for Christmas entitled What Have You Lost by Naomi Shihab Nye and will be sharing about it quite soon!


Evening Poetry, April 4

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In honor of National Poetry Month, and Mary Oliver, our beloved national poet who passed away in January, I will be posting one of her poems each evening in April. I am hoping to follow in the footsteps of Sarah Clarkson and read a poem on Instagram Live in the evenings as well…Follow me on Instagram to tune in.

I Know Someone

I know someone who kisses the way

a flower opens, but more rapidly.

Flowers are sweet. They have

short beatific lives. They offer

much pleasure. There is

nothing in the world that can be said

against them.

Sad isn’t it, that all they can kiss

is the air.

Yes, yes! We are the lucky ones!

This poem is from the collection, Felicity.

Evening Poetry, April 3

KimLeave a comment

In honor of National Poetry Month, and Mary Oliver, our beloved national poet who passed away in January, I will be posting one of her poems each evening in April. I am hoping to follow in the footsteps of Sarah Clarkson and read a poem on Instagram Live in the evenings as well…Follow me on Instagram to tune in.

Yellow

There is the heaven we enter

Through institutional grace

and there are the yellow finches bathing and signing

in the lowly puddle.

This poem can be found in Evidence.

Evening Poetry, April 2

KimLeave a comment

In honor of National Poetry Month, and Mary Oliver, our beloved national poet who passed away in January, I will be posting one of her poems each evening in April. I am hoping to follow in the footsteps of Sarah Clarkson and read a poem on Instagram Live in the evenings as well…Follow me on Instagram to tune in.

The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice–

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations–

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of the clouds,

and there was a new voice,

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do–

determined to save

the life you could save.

This poem is found in the collection Dream Work.

Evening Poetry, April 1

KimLeave a comment

In honor of National Poetry Month, and Mary Oliver, our beloved national poet who passed away in January, I will be posting one of her poems each evening in April. I am hoping to follow in the footsteps of Sarah Clarkson and read a poem on Instagram Live in the evenings as well…Follow me on Instagram to tune in.

Don’t Worry

Things take the time they take. Don’t worry.

How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?

This poem is from the collection, Felicity.

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The Heart’s Necessities (Book Review)

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I recently finished reading The Heart’s Necessities: Life in Poetry by Jane Tyson Clement and Becca Stevens. It shares the story of Jane Tyson Clement’s life, which was woven throughout with poetry.

She began writing poems as a teenager, and that is the way she seemed to best express herself. As a young woman, she married, had children, and, for a season, moved from the States to a Bruderhof community in South America. Jane was a lively teacher and a loving wife and mother, who always had poems singing through her head and heart. Her poetry was wound up in Nature and in the intricacies of her daily life.

Becca Stevens is a songwriter who has been influenced by Jane’s poems and wanted to share these quiet and beautiful gems with the world. She wrote the book with a chapter on Jane’s life, interspersed with snippets of poetry, lovely photos of nature, several poems at the end of each chapter, followed by Becca’s reflections on Jane’s life and poetry.

Like many other offerings from Plough Publishing, this book would make a wonderful gift for a poetry lover or songwriter, or for anyone longing for a glimpse at how the ordinary life is transformed through poetry. It will be released on April 22 and you can preorder it here.

This Day is Ready For You (Book Reviews)

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I recently read The Day Is Ready for You by Alison Malee. This delightful collection of poetry is fresh, sharp and fiery. Emotion sings from every page. Sometimes they are angry, at others singing a tender love song. Sometimes full of everyday life and then they soar into possibility. Sometimes all in the same poem.

Most of the poems’ subjects focus on relationships: all the highs and lows and newness and mundane. Others have to do with being a woman or how life seems from her perspective. She has a definite rhythm and voice that distills life in a perspicacious manner all her own.

Get this book, poetry people! Get it if you don’t think you’re a poetry person. I highly recommend it.

*I received an e-copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Bookaholic Problems (What I’m Reading Now)

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Two days ago, as I was salivating over the prospect of purchasing another few books, I stopped my searching and took a breath, grabbed myself by the shoulders–metaphorically speaking–and gave myself a shake.

“You have a lot of books on your library shelves and on your nightstand that have yet to be read. You don’t need one more book, nor do you deserve one until you’ve read at least ten.”

Ugh, I pouted. I didn’t want to hear it. But it was true; I did have plenty of reading material on hand to keep me busy for quite a while.

Soooo, I decided to go on a book buying diet of sorts. I will allow myself one book purchase for every ten books I read. It will make me read more because I can never stop wondering what that book will be like.

Here is the list of books I’m either reading or will be starting very soon…

On Writing by Stephen King. Ok, I am not really a King fan. Sorry to disappoint all of you who are. He has the ability to tell great stories, but after reading 11/22/63 and being downright furious with the ending, not to mention the excess of words (it went on forever), I probably won’t be reading his fiction any time soon. But several people recommended On Writing, and it’s not an overlong book, so I’m reading it.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. I haven’t read this, but Anne Bogel of Modern Mrs Darcy has recommended it and it’s rare that I don’t value her opinion. It sounds like a bit of sci-fi (post-apocalyptic) with Shakespeare thrown in.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott is another book about writing that I’ve been wanting to read for a while. I picked up a copy last summer at a local used bookstore and it’s been sitting inside my nightstand cubby just waiting to be read. Yesterday, I read the introduction, which made me laugh more than once and be completely intrigued about Anne’s life, this book, and other books she’s written. How have I not read her before this?

Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad is a collection of poetry from the Iranian poet I read about in Song of a Captive Bird: A Novel, which I reviewed here. Her story so interested me that I wanted to understand her a little more through her actual writings.

Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon will be a short, motivating kick in the pants, if it’s anything like his book Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative. I’m looking forward to this one.

Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 by Elizabeth Alexander was a Christmas present I received a couple of years ago. If I remember her story correctly, she became a poet as a means to work through her grief after her husband’s disappearance and presumed death while out sailing.

Autumn: A Novel (Seasonal Quartet) by Ali Smith is another book I’ve heard Anne Bogel talk about on her podcast What Should I Read Next (highly reccomended). I have the Audible version, so I’ll be listening while sewing or painting, driving, or making dinner.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf is a classic I might’ve read as a teen, but I honestly can’t remember. I purchased the Audible version with Juliet Stevenson narrating.

The House of the Spirits: A Novel by Isabelle Allende was another book I picked up last year at a local used bookstore. I heard her interviewed on Just the Right Book with Roxanne Coady (another highly recommended podcast) and fell in love with her as she shared about her life and writing.

The Mussorgsky Riddle by Daron Kennedy is a book that Alan purchased for me last year when he was at a book convention. It’s different from the categories I usually reach for, which is a good thing. Listening to Pictures at an Exhibition is very helpful to understand some of the references. Anyway, I’m about halfway through and it’s getting to the point where I want to know what happens next. There’s a kid with autism, a psychic who can enter his imaginary world, a missing, possibly murdered teen girl, a witch and other fantasy characters.

Hey, I would love to hear about what you’ve been reading lately. Please share in the comments. Thanks!

   

Sunday Offering

Kim2 Comments

Sunday Prayer

 

I come to you at a slant, like a reverse sunbeam

from self-imposed exile. Was it easier with manmade ladders?

I’m not sure my sincerity always showed up.

Does it disappoint you that I am not in a row 

with the rest, doing my best to fit in, and failing?

 

Do you mind if the familiarity of sameness and routine 

has been cast aside in favor of singing praise

to you like falling rain or as the trees, simply by standing? 

 

I don’t want to hurt your heart 

or muddy your name with my red-lettered life. 

If you asked me if I loved you I would tell you 

I do and always have done.

 

Saints are called so for a reason and I am not one. 

Just a person with a few parts missing 

or in need of repair, coming to you 

looking for love and absolution. 

 

Some see you as dead as Zeus. 

Some don’t see you at all.

I see you everywhere mothering, fathering 

tending. Winsome and kind.

 

It is how the wind breathes into the hair of firs and 

the light gleams down on the dead brown grass.

How the birds return in spring and fly away again in the fall that I know. 

 

Perhaps my tears really are in a bottle that you keep. 

Perhaps it does matter to you if I bleed. 

Perhaps you will forgive my trespasses and 

welcome all the versions 

of myself that I present to you. 

©2018/by Kim Zimmerman/All Rights Reserved

 

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Links I Love

Kim2 Comments

Here is where I will share a few links of podcast episodes, blog posts, websites, TED talks, new books, etc. that I favorite each week. Refresh your imagination and fill up your inspiration tank. Happy weekend!

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Srini Rao’s The Unmistakable Creative Podcast is definitely on the top of my new favorites. (It’s not a new podcast, but one I just started listening to.) I’ve been inspired to think differently and encouraged on my nontraditional path of living creatively.

The first one I listened to is with Michael Ellsberg, author of The Education of Millionaires: Everything You Won’t Learn in College About How to Be Successful and The Last Safe Investment: Spending Now to Increase Your True Wealth Forever, both which I ordered second-hand copies of as soon as I finished listening. Spending Now to Increase Your True Wealth Forever isn’t really about spending, but it is about investing, about taking a risk and being willing to live differently in order to have a meaningful life. I sent this one to my son, an Uber-creative person in the hope that he listens too.

The second one is with Kate Swoboda: The Courage Habit. She is the author of a book by that title as well as a life coach who has a training program for other life coaches. In this podcast, Kate talks with Srini about facing our fears and acknowledging they exist, but not letting them run our lives. You need to hear this! I can’t wait to read her book.

In honor of National Poetry Day, here are two blogs that are pure poetry:

Caliath.com is poetry blog from a fellow WordPresser. I’m so glad I found it! This poem is a lovely pick.

David Whyte just released a new collection of poetry: The Bell and the Blackbird. I can’t wait until my copy arrives! Also, view David’s TED talk here.

And lastly, two posts on the importance of poetry: Why Poetry is Necessary by Elizabeth Alexander and How Poetry Can Change Lives by John Burnside.